Wednesday 30 December 2009

Today; The sunny side of life!







If yesterday was pretty today was beautiful!

YDA. VIKINGA PRE WISHES ALL A PEACEFUL END TO 2009 AND A 2010 FILLED WITH ENERGY, JOY AND SUCCESS!

Tuesday 29 December 2009

Winter today

Winter in Sweden when as its best, today was one of those pretty days!
Intimidad Cen

'Inma', prefers being glued to you but I did get these pictures, she is such a beautiful queen with her big Donoso-baby-belly, so much looking forward to see this foal!

Betty

Swedish christmas home

Betty is not a trained dog but she does know the STOP for picking her up, for photos and even for dress-rooms, it would'nt be possible to get a dog into the shops in Sweden but in Spain we have tried out H&M and a few other open minded shops.. Betty is from Granada, Spain.

Monday 28 December 2009

Self-deception


"A messenger was sent on a urgent mission to a distant city. He saddled up his horse and set off at gallopp. After passing several inns where animals like him were normally fed, the horse thought: 'We're not stopping to eat at any stables, which means that I'm being treated, not like a horse, but like a human being. Like all other men, I will eat in the next city we reach'.
But the cities all passed by, one after the other, and his rider continued on his way. The horse began to think 'Perhaps I haven't changed into a human being after all, but into an angel, becuase angels have no need to eat'. Finally, they reached their destination and the animal was let to the stable, where he greedily devoured the hay he found there.
'Why believe that things have changed simply because they do not happen quite as expected?' he said to himself. 'I'm not a man nor an angel. I'm simply a hungry horse'."

- from 'Like the flowing river' by Paulo Coelho -

Sunday 27 December 2009

Spanish olive swedish christmas tree


Spanish-olive-swedish-christmas-tree

This is one example of how I integrate cultures in my life. Spanish horses, swedish values and english communication suits me. I do not value one country being better than the other, in the end we are all the same anyway. I come to think about the frequent comparison of the warmblood horse versus the Iberian horse. Personally I find this comparison totally unessesary, it only proves that we are not clear of what is a good ahtlete horse when it comes down to good movement, composition, temperament. Our personal likings are not interesting for the sport, even though these make our horse-world more colourful and diverse which is great, but good movement is purely good movement, irrespectively of what race of horse is moving. Just like red has a objective quality of being fiery, warm and provocative, good movement has its objective qualities. I have my criterias very clear but I think there is a need to clarify which the objective qualities for dressage are and agree once and for all, so we can move forward and stop being racist about it, one cheek said to the other - 'let's stop this nonsense and get together!'.

Saturday 26 December 2009

Poem


'There are those who do not believe,
that a single soul,
born in heaven,
can split into twin spirits
and shoot like foreign starts to earth.
Where oceans and continents,
with their magnetic forces,
will finally unite them back into one.'

- Don Juan de Marco -

Friday 25 December 2009

Soul food


'If you want to be happy, be.'
- Leo Tolstoy -

Thursday 24 December 2009

Very Merry Christmas!


To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is the meaning of success.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

Wednesday 23 December 2009

Christmas Soul Food

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not darkness, that most frighten us. We ask ourselves, 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are part of the universe, you playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Nelson Mandela -

Tuesday 22 December 2009

Thank you all!


Thank You clients for coming to us with a positive attitude and making our job fun and interesting!
Thank You breeders and veterinarians for a year of great collaboration!
Thank You Kerstin o Jan for taking care of our horses and for being so involved!
Thank You Eskil!
A warm Thank You to swedish breeders for choosing Donoso VII as the father to your foals!
Thank You Jade for being a great home to Donoso & Start!
Thank You everyone for Your support and well wishes at SICAB, we truly appreciate it!
Thank You all for writing us your sincere thoughts and comments on email, Blogs, Facebook and Youtube, they are always welcome and very appreciated!
Thank You friends and family for keeping in touch even though you haven't heard from us for a long time!

Yeguada VIKINGA PRE wishes everyone the very best christmas and a 2010 full of happiness and success!

Monday 21 December 2009

Too much and so little



Jade today
This little snow is the cause for total spanish chaos. Betty and I were in the airport for 5 hours the reason being - WEATHERCONDITIONS = 1 cm snow and some fog. I was many times asking myself how can it be that 1 cm snow is such a big deal, it falls every year in Madrid and EVERY year it is the same - the journalists make it sound like it is some kind of nature disaster like a earthquake or else! So funny, however in airport waiting with dog is not so much fun, no. Some had it worse, no plane at all or delayed to next day. We did arrive, to a wintery Sweden where people are setting themselves up for christmas and enjoying the thought of a white christmas, spikes on wheels and off we go!

Sunday 20 December 2009

Warm & Cold


Today in the sun - smiling

Javier before he froze to ice, not smiling

Already frozen to ice, definitely not smiling
Wow, time flies when you are having fun, have not been writing here since 1rst of December, we have been working alot but now it is christmas holidays, hurray! Today was a glorious sunshiny day and after having bought a christmas pressy for our superstar-stablegroom Hector we sat down at our local village-bar to have our 'aperitivo' outside in the sun, lovely. Then we went for a ride - yes, correct - WE, Javier and I, went for a ride, in the mountains, NO rocky roads though, only exclusive-legs-friendly ones, cold but grand landscape that you can't see as our fingers were frozen stiff taking them. We passed some enormous bulls and horses did the 'I-see-bull-bullfighting gesture' and they probably thought THAT is what our genes are for, how did this dressage come into the picture? I once visited a studfarm where they gave the horses freshly squeezed orangejouice on a daily basis so now when it is christmas I give D & S oranges for being good - they love it - peel and all, so no lack of vitamin C.
Javier had to endure the long food-mineral-vitamin-new hay-alfalfa-blanket-windows open-windows closed-discourse as I am going to be away 10 days that is a very long time. We left Donut quietly eating, Start being the tyrannousaurus rex because of the new exquisite hay that he absolutely loves and naturally has to protect best way possible.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

Going home


So finally all was over, abit like the christmas-is-over-feeling you get when opened all the presents. We passed by Cárdenas on the way to meet up with some people and to see a stallion I had fallen in love with when we visited the farm summer 2008. Unfortunately we did not see good representatives of the Cárdenas brand, the quality of the horses were low, we saw toed-out, heavy head, fallen underlip, broken neck outline, defined cross mark and long backs. There was one horse that moved ok and had a correct conformation but the others had irregular movements, hollow backs and shuffling hindlegs. There was also a small correct stallion but he had ponylike looks. Not good. We then found out that at least two of the stallions were already sold, the deal was settled beforehand and the bidding was a set up and not real. Very disappointing. Mr Cárdenas would do better not only selling the horses he does not want, after all they are representatives of him. 
We got home to a snowy Madrid late in the night.

The champions SICAB 2009


This is Udon, Champion of Spain 2009 and Donoso's next door neighbour



The Spanish National Champions were crowned - the champion Udon is a tall, blonde, quite slim modell spaniard. Very handsome. My favourite of all is Kabileño VIII that won Functionality (rideability & movements) and got title Best Movements (by hand). This is a 'importantissimo' horse, a spanish M. Tootilas that takes your breath away when he moves, watch out for this one, he is special and what a representative for the PRE race. He has been on our home, we saw him competing last summer and no matter how you hold that camera you get good shots of this one. He is also in the Horsespre blog, I compared him to M. Tootilas.


Then I rode Donoso and showed him to Victor Álvarez, he had to share space with the marockan guest-horses (guest country Marocko this year) with hundreds of bells, marockan men that walked around in spooky white dresses and a horse that bolted, it was all a bit too much so I said I can't do much here and went to another arena.
Victor Álvarez

Saturday



Saturday was a great day, we saw the final of the functionality and there were three worthy and professional presentations, the rest was not very impressive as the horses simply did not move but ran through the test. This was also reflected in the scores that varied with a difference of 20%, there were the three 'top' horses, the rest were 'fill out' and could really not compete with the others which is not acceptable, in the final we want to see more than three good horses/presentations please. Again, the horses need to have moves for dressage and not for carriage driving.
We saw the Grand Prix Kür, wonderful artistically, some really went for it with great composed music and advanced tecnical moves, it seemed like the artistic quality was favoured instead of perfectionism which was uplifting and inspirational! Enjoyed it!
I tried the horse we have for sale see Nr 357, excellent sporty PRE for dressage that has all moves for Prix St George + tempi twos and ones, a swingy passagy trot, lovely canter pirouettes, half pass and a good walk. It is a ambitious little horse, abit accelerated from pressure from rider, very very talented and uncomplicated to ride, I liked him alot, he has the electricity needed to do the upper level dressage. Therese rode 'Donut' meanwhile, did a very good warm-up job on him and I finished with some piaffy/passagy moves that is coming on great. Donut was admired in SICAB, Therese walked him around and had several people asking her if he was for sale, one person offered me 50000 Eur for him but he is not for sale. He loved the atmosphere, the horses and the people, I see a important horse in him, he is growing!
Therese & Donoso VII




Friday 27 November 2009

So much going on


Thanks to everyone for you comments and best wishes!
There is so much to talk about, I am bursting to bring up the discussions that are close to me now and there are so many!
Listen to this one - Donoso will NOT have a protocol from the judges, no scores, no points, he will be one of the 39 best stallions but that's as accurate as it gets. The judges only marks and give a protocol to the 15 qualified horses and as we were thrown out we are totally without any evaluation whatsoever. I went down to the office with Javier and asked them how this could possibly be, the best judges and the best horses and there is NO evaluation? I said I was totally disillusioned, we make much effort to prepare, bring and pay for the horses to compete - we put our horses there in front of the elite judges and we want them to say; THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL HEAD or THIS IS A BAD LEG etc, and in the most prestigeous competition they don't even take the trouble and time to look properly at our horses? We all go to get a evaluation for ourselves and for the horse, for our breeding, for our understanding and education and all I was shown was that 1 out of the 3 judges wanted Donoso to qualify. I want a serious and professional judge to mark my horse, not one that say - IN or OUT without having visible criterias that supports his decision. In this way noone can question the results, the judges don't have to justify any markings and this is very comfortable. For them.
Photos from today.








Then we saw the Functionality. I am going for one here too. The overall quality of the horses and the quality of the performances were totally disturbing. To see horses 7 years and older, running, some bolting, most with their heads beind the vertical with double bridles and the rider going up and down like on a 3 year old horse (prancing?). I am sorry but this is not good enough. At least ride the horse before the competiton, present him decently. And if he is going to be a Spanish Champion - and the PRE a horse for riding - he has to be able to do something more than circles in trot and canter. Someone wise and influential has to do something here because most of the horses presented were only good for driving and would never be able to do anything in the dressage arena. No hindlegs underneath, no pushing through the topline, no extention in trot and lots of short and high kneeaction that did not cover any ground.
But hey - it is not all doom and gloom! No, no we are enjoying ourselves as never before and today I was riding in the warm up for the Grand Prix, getting inspiration, seeing good moving horses, good riders and havíng professional opinions about my horse and my riding. Juan Matute, Rafael Soto, Juan Antonio Jimenez were there. There are many wonderful people that actually takes the trouble to come up to us to tell us how impressed they are by Donoso, it makes me very happy and I appreciate it alot. One breeder wanted me to ride his horse tomorrow, it is a horse we have for sale, a relative to Donoso, he is a fantastic horse and I am very much looking forward to this tomorrow!

Thursday 26 November 2009

THE DAY




They were 39 and Donoso was last one out, totally cruel to our nerves! But how exciting, loved every minute of it and sucked it in. I had studied previous best results of each one of them and comparing these to Donut's scores he was 14 in morfology and 11 in movements! These are the 39 best PRE stallions! A very glamourous row of horses.
In the trot he tucked in the hindlegs and pushed through a fab trot-lonrun without missing rhytm once, so beautiful and ahhh so exciting! Very few managed to do the longrun in one go, fantastic! There will be a video of that. The horses that qualified was the usual ones that has 'been there done that and got the SICAB t-shirt', I loved especially 2 of them, both of them definitely worthy to have the title 'Champion of Spain'. Judges favoured the big, heavy type, the typical horse for carriage driving, Donoso is the athletic type and he was definitely the most elegant one, what a pity I did not get to ride the test, he would have given them a hard time!